The art of the Viennese sculptor Veronica Taussig is Orphic in spirit. It grows out of peaceful contemplation and joie de vivre. It impacts the viewer through colour and immaculate form, evoking distinct emotional states.

Her repertoire of motifs and forms is broad, ranging from regular and geometrical to organic and biomorphic shapes and complex multilayered structures from paper. If works demarcate the boundaries of the self and define spiritual and cultural identity, in Taussig’s case this is an extensive space. Her work echoes Constantin Brâncuși, the Russian Constructivists, Hans Arp, Alexander Calder, and Nicolas Schöffer, and above all Henri Matisse. Taussig viewed the forms of Matisse’s late works, cut from coloured patterns, several years ago in New York. Matisse drew with scissors, cutting into colour—as he put it—like a sculptor cutting into stone. Taussig translates this concept directly into sculpture, creating cardboard and XPS foam models for sculptures from aluminium and polymers.

Taussig alludes to the world of things only through distant, flickering associations. Her works gradually assume the autonomy of shape. Oval forms are associated with the flecks we see when we stare at light through half-closed eyes. Like afterimages, they contrast red, blue, black and white. The artist weaves a tale of light materializing in the gleam of polished steel and aluminium, with mysterious optics. She employs fully saturated, pure primary colours. She selects and harmonizes colours most strongly expressing joy and vitality.

In her paper compositions, colour is broken down into its elementary components and arranged into an optical composite. It becomes subtle, muffled, and tiny fragments of paper form a twinkling, quivering structure with surprising dynamics. It’s an attempt to integrate painting and sculpture and also a paean to the sense of sight.

Veronica Taussig was born in 1948 in Romania, and has lived and worked in Vienna for many years. Her whole professional life has been connected with interior design, but she now devotes every free moment to her own projects. Her studio has quickly filled with new sculptures and objects, geometrical forms with unusual arrangements of colours.

Organic and architectonic elements, somewhat laboratory-like, feminine, are inspirations for Taussig.